This post is written by Santosh Ojha,a regular contributor of posts to this blog and a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movies and its songs

To me, “Amar, Akbar, Anthony”, a 1977 release, defined the Bollywood of late 70’s to mid-80’s. The ubiquitous lost-and-found formula, rocking songs, maar-peet, vendetta, incredibly hirsute villains…. you name it and it was there. It was a multi-starrer too, multi-starrer being a buzz-word in the era. A multi-starrer to beat all multi-starrers!
Amitabh Bachchan paired with Parveen Babi, Vinod Khanna falling in love with Shabana Azmi and Rishi Kapoor serenading Neetu Singh. With supporting cast like Mukri, Kamal Kapoor, Nazir Hussain who played the foster fathers of the three lost-and-found brothers Rishi, Vinod and Amitabh respectively. Jeevan as the villain with henchmen Ranjeet and Zebisco (I do not know his real name). Pran and Nirupa Roy played the roles of the real parents. You even spot the dialogue writer Kadar Khan voicelessly lurking in a scene in Jeevan’s den.

The story in brief:

Pran (Kishanlal) is a driver under the employ of a smuggler, Robert, (Jeevan). His family of five (husband, wife, three sons) get separated on a tragic 15th August morning. The details are too complex to recount here. However, suffice it to say, Pran ends up being a smuggler, his wife runs away to commit suicide but has an accident and turns blind. Their three sons also get separated, and each ends up being raised differently, one a Hindu, another Muslim and the third a Catholic!

The eldest gets adopted by a Hindu police ispector, Kamal Kapoor. Hence Vinod Khanna retains his original Hindu name, Amar. He also takes up his foster father’s profession of a cop. The middle fellow lands up at Mount Mary Church, Bandra (though the movie places the church in Borivali) and is adopted by the priest and christened Anthony Gonsalves. Anthony, Amitabh Bachchan, grows up to be a country-liquor vendor and a local mawali. The youngest chap is adopted by a tailor-master and is named Akbar. He becomes a qawali singer. Their mother, Nirupa Roy, now blind, thinks her entire family has perished in a car crash is now eking out a living selling flowers.

All this goes to prove the syncretic nature of the Indian culture typified by this oft-repeated ditty:

“Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Eesai,
Ham sab hain bhai-bhai.”

Bhai-bhai, of course!!

(Whether Hindu, or Muslim, or Sikh or Christian, we are all brothers.)

I bet, if Pran-Nirupa had son number four, he would have been raised in a Sikh household!

Very tellingly, early on in the movie, the three brothers-all grown up now- and unknown to each other, get together to donate blood to an street accident victim, Nirupa Roy, their mother. Of course they do not know who the other is, or that the beneficiary is their mother! There are these three young lads next to each other on hospital beds with tubing into their arms carrying their blood directly into their mother’s body. Forces of gravity be damned! Blood is thicker than water, and it has properties which negates all principles of physics. Period!

When asked what their names are, each speaks out, even as their blood is being drawn, “Amar”, “Akbar” and finally the baritone of Amitabh, “Anthony”. Then starts the credit roll with Rafi’s song in the background: “Khoon, khoon hota hai, paani nahin” (Blood is thicker than water). Taaliyan from the spectators!

The sons grow up, and they fall in love. Vinod fancies Shabana who is a part of an extortionist gang. Amitabh is in love with Parveen, the foster daughter of Pran but who is actually Robert’s daughter. Rishi is besotted with Neetu Singh who is a doctor at a local hospital. Nirupa Roy, the flower seller, keeps bumping into her sons without knowing that they really are her sons. Pran, now a smuggler, reduces Robert, his ex-employer- and tormentor- to penury. He even kidnaps his daughter. If your mind reels at all this, worry not, check out the movie!

Over time, all pieces of this jigsaw come together. Each member of the family of five discovers the other eventually. Mom dearest even gets her eyesight back in a Shirdi Sai Baba temple.

And all is well in the end.

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This film is directed by Manmohan Desai, the then king of Bollywood. Remember “Dharam Veer”, “Parvarish”, “Chacha Bhatija”, etc.? He was the man with the Midas touch. Whatsoever he touched, turned to gold (jubilee). By the way, all the above-named movies were released in the same year- 1977- as also AAA, the movie under discussion. Needless to say all were bumper hits!

Manmohan Desai., MKD, would have been an outstanding cartoonist, if he had not taken upon film making. Larger-than-life characters, totally improbable situations, lots of action, tons of emotions, complex and confusing story lines, but all converging to an altogether satisfying conclusion. It seemed each of his movies had scenes ripped off from pages of comic books, but strung together so entertainingly. A pity he died early; he committed suicide in 1994, when he was in his late 50’s.

One short section of AAA encapsulates the utterly engaging comic-book approach of MKD, this song “My name is Anthony Gonsalves” and the events which follow after that. Amitabh, who is besotted with Jenny (Parveen), shows up at the Easter party where she is a guest. And how he shows up! Ensconced into a giant Easter egg wheeled onto the stage and opens up to reveal Amitabh in a dark suit, bow-tie and monocles. Carrying an umbrella which he uses as a prop to execute his dance moves. The bi-lingual lyrics are utterly zany. Specially the incredibly-worded English bits.

Amitabh gets beaten to pulp by Jenny’s bodyguard (Zebisco) in the party. In the classic scene which follows, a drunken- and badly injured – Amitabh chats with himself in his bedroom mirror administering first-aid to his image. This scene is one of the most hilarious ones I have ever seen in Hindi cinema!

And from an acting stand-point, this is one of the best movies of Amitabh Bachchan I have ever seen.

Without further ado, I will now let you enjoy this song: “My name is Anthony Gonsalves”.

PS: I saw this movie twice, when I was in my 10th standard; just before my school-leaving ICSE exams, on 8th and 12th October, 1977. And the third viewing was on 30th November a day after the exams got over. Not that on the intervening day I was idling. On 29th November I watched “Zanjeer”, an older AB movie I had missed earlier was in town for a rerun. The movie that started the phenomenon AB is!

15 Responses to "My name is Anthony Gonsalves"

hello Mr.Ojha
great write up of a lovable movie. god only knows how many times we have seen it. thanks to SONY TV. i only wanted to give you a few bits of information.
Zebisco’s real name is Yusuf Khan. ( i found this out only recently when i was reading a wikipedia entry on “Bombay To Goa”)
next Mukri played Neetu Singh’s Dad
the tailor who brings up Rishi Kapoor is old timer Shivraj.(we had also seen him in “Junglee” with Shammi Kapoor. also in the movies of that era he used to give Nasir Hussain competition in the sob scenes)
and a bit of typo error in ur write up- MKD’s movie was “Dharam Veer”. “Dharam Karam” was a Raj Kapoor movie

Thanks for the additional information/correction. I personally never bothered to look this closely as to remember who plays whose parent in this movie teeming with so many parents. Yes, I too was vaguely aware of Zebisco’s name being Yusuf Khan.

Thanks a lot for all these bits of information. And for those corrections.

Talking about sob scenes and Nasir Hussain/ Shivraj, a popular nick for Nasir H in our circles was “pagdi”. Nasir H who, in many a movie, would place his “pagdi” at the powerful’s ones feet, imploring, “meri pagdi aapkey kadmon per…… etc etc”. At the drop of a hat… oops.. pagdi!

Unfortunately in AAA he was not wearing one, he being a Catholic priest. Or else, I suspect he would have done the same with Anthony, while begging him to stay away from his wayward activities!

Lovely write-up, Santosh.
Love this movie.
Typical Manmohan Desai lost-and-found formula, oodles of fun.
Loved all the characters.
This was the first movie that I actually noticed Parveen Babi (had seen her earlier in a few movies like Majboor but not really noticed her). She was gorgeous in AAA.

All the songs in this movie are fun to listen to. Even now, after all these years, I can sit back and enjoy this movie on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

y only on sunday afternoons. what abt all the times it comes on TV and manages to lift us from down moods and clears bad weather in the family. infact just thinking of any scene in the movie brings a smile to the face

I was actually wondering about the logistics of scenes where he moves in and out of the church. Like the one in which he is pulling out the Father literally to show him jenny for the first time. shooting that twice? and what perfect continuity!

‘Amar Akbar Anthony-1977’ , ‘Yaadon ki Baarat-1973′ are one those very special movies for us …’ people of the seventies’… They bring back memories.. we cannot forget there songs.. so much nostalgia attached with these special movies …
but why I am focussing on them now … ?? 🙂
wait …